Emphasize action and movement in your storyboard to engage readers.
Manga is the word for comics or printed stories in Japanese. Unlike Western comics, manga comics rely heavily on motion effects for storytelling. Reading a manga feels almost like watching a movie. Storyboarding is a process that can help you express your manga story fluidly and with movement. Good storyboards, which lead the eyes from scene to scene, should allow the reader to become completely engrossed in the story without being distracted too much by the unique format.
Instructions
1. Create your story. A script form will be great but an outline will suffice. The action and dialogue that will appear on each page should be written down in words. This is a crucial step. You will need to have at least some idea of what our storyboard will look like, since its format will depend on the content.
Having character pages drawn out will help immensely. These are sheets with characters drawn from many different perspectives and with different facial expressions. Knowing how your characters look and convey their expressions, will make the process of storyboarding easier.
2. Download a storyboard sheet from the Internet, or make your own with a ruler or straight-edge. Keep in mind that manga storyboards are not as fixed as storyboards for Western-style comics. For example, box sizes vary and some frames will not have borders. Because of this, you should only design one page at a time.
3. Write the general plan for what is to be expressed at the top of the storyboard. After that, write what should happen in each frame. Indicate with light arrows what frames should flow fluidly into the next. Storyboards usually have a lot of writing and markings, but don't worry about this, because a storyboard is only a draft of the final product.
4. Sketch your storyboard with a hard lead -- higher number -- pencil in the HB range. Higher numbers will make lighter lines. Do one frame or unbounded area of the paper at a time. Keep it very simple for now. Use basic shapes for objects and people, and broad, flowing strokes to show movement between frames. Draw very lightly with the pencil. Whatever you draw should be easily erasable. Revise as needed.
5. Go over your pencil work with a harder, darker lead. Use a softer lead like 2B, 4B or 6B. Soft leads create more expressive lines than harder leads. They are also easier to smear: use this feature to your advantage for shading. Do not be afraid to go outside of the boxes, as the entire storyboard is still a draft. You can always clean up the lines after you scan your work.
6. Scan or digitize your work in grayscale at 300 dots per inch and save it as a JPEG. Open up your file in Photoshop. Increase the exposure/contrast to white out any light pencil marks. Only dark pencil strokes should remain. Use the eraser tool to clean up any unwanted lines.
